Wanted: 1,000 worm-loving food waste alchemists – FFA

Nottingham-based initiative The Urban Worm Community Interest Company is on a mission to #wormup the UK – and it needs your help.

The National Lottery awarded the grant to the social enterprise in order to send out 1,000 packs to UK schools, community organizations, and households. There’s just one requirement: groups need to create a DIY worm farm to house them in first.

Anna de la Vega is the managing director. 1,000 Worm Farmers project will empower people to create a worm farm, manage their organic waste responsibly, and make their own worm poo – all for free – from home.

“Food waste emits greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, which are 31 and 310 times stronger than carbon dioxide,” said de la Vega.

“We don’t like to think that valuable worm food is being thrown in a bin when there are millions hungry worms to feed.. Not only do the mighty worms help us to manage our organic waste responsibly, they provide us with a steady supply of the world’s finest fertiliser and compost, for free, helping us to grow in harmony with the Earth.”

We hate to think of valuable worm food being thrown in the bin, when there are millions of hungry worm mouths to feed

Participants must upload a photo of their worm farm to the application form. project’s websiteYou will receive 100g tiger worms by post

“All we ask in return is that you love and care for your worms as if your life depended upon it,” said de la Vega. She and her team have uploaded videos showing how to make a DIY worm farm (hint: plastic containers, sets of drawers, swing bins and even ‘bags for life’ can be used), with more videos planned on how to harvest the worm poo and how best to use it for “magical results in the garden”.

Main image: The urban Worm CIC